Bad Day
by Resonae
Summary: Trapped in a burning building with limited oxygen on an extremely hot summer day? Clint was having a very bad day. Clint!whump, IronHawk.


A/N: I own none of them. The only warnings are slash, some bad words and Clint whump.

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Clint was having a very, very bad day. Not only was it hot and humid and otherwise incredibly unpleasant, the Avengers were fighting a gang of fire-breathing monsters made of fire. On top of all that, his summer suit had all but disintegrated in the acid spitting alien battle last week and hadn't quite been replaced yet, meaning he was stuck in his regular suit that was too thick and too heavy for New York summers.

All in one, it was not a good day for Clint. He was also feeling remotely useless, as none of his arrows did much to the fire monsters except piss them off, and Thor had suggested he stop. His only comfort was that the others couldn't do much either, but now they were using fire hydrants to fight and it was pretty effective. Clint had wanted to help, but Steve had ordered him to stay and keep a look out for the rest of the Avengers. So far the only use he had been was telling Thor that a fire monster had hurled a burning rock in his direction.

It was way too hot, too humid and too lacking in wind. Clint felt like he was sitting in a sauna, and all he really wanted was ice cold water. "Captain, there's a monster about ten feet around the corner from you. I don't think he knows you're there, but just warning you."

[Got it. Thanks, Hawkeye.]

Great. Second useful thing he'd done. He scanned the streets again. Natasha and Tony were using a car door Tony had ripped out from a nearby car to control water flow. Thor was playing baseball and apparently having all sorts of fun, because he was laughing as he smashed fire monsters into fire hydrants. When their fires were out, the beasts were apparently made of rock, and Hulk had no problem stomping on their heads.

Clint was about to complain in his head when Natasha gave a short cry. His eyes snapped to her and Tony to see Tony knocked to the ground with a huge firey monster, with another looming up on Natasha.

He reacted before he thought. He sent an explosive arrow straight at the geyser. Thankfully Tony reacted right away and shielded Natasha before she could be showered with hot water and rocks and other things as the fire hydrant exploded.

Fortunately, it put out the fire on the two monsters advancing on Tony and Natasha, and Tony used the advantage to blast their heads off.

Unfortunately, the ten or so other beasts looked right up at Clint. And jumped. "Well, fuck." Clint muttered before staggering backward. He couldn't go very far because one by one they surrounded him. And then proceeded to let out an unearthly keen that suddenly washed a wave of intense heat over him. When he got his bearings straight again he realized he wasn't burnt, but one by one the beasts let out a shrill scream before exploding into a wave of heat - and making a large, fiery barrier around the building. And setting the building on fire.

It was definitely not a good day for Clint. [Hawkeye!] Tony's voice was panicked. [Hawkeye, do you copy?]

"Yeah, yeah I'm alive. It's hot as fuck in this but I'm alive." He didn't add that he didn't know for how much longer now that the entire building he was standing on was on fire, and the fire barrier was preventing him from jumping off.

[We're trying to put the fire out, Hawkeye. Hold on.] Steve tried to sound reassuring, but Clint read the panic in his voice. It didn't help. Clint tried to shoot an arrow at the wall of fire. The arrow hit it and bounced uselessly to the floor.

Well, damn. "Cap, try throwing your shield against the wall?" Steve did as asked and Clint heard two crashes, Natasha's low curses and a wince from Steve.

[Please don't tell me this is airtight.] A new voice said. Clint recognized it to be Bruce's. [We've got to get him out of here. Hawkeye's going to be losing oxygen, fast.]

A new panicked thought settled into Clint's mind. The doctor was right. The flames weren't only hot, they were going to be consuming all of his oxygen if this was a truly airtight barrier. His mind tried to panic, but a voice sounded, firm and steady. [You hold on, Hawkeye. I swear I'll get you out of there. I'm not Tony Stark if I can't.]

So Clint chose not to panic and instead settled to finding himself a relatively safe distance away from the fire around him. He fought the urge to strip his vest off, because it was a layer of protection that he couldn't afford to lose, in case he had to run through fire. Tony and Bruce spent the next ten minutes mapping temperature fields and energy fields and finally concluded, [There must be a big mama behind all this.]

[And I think we know how to get to it.] Bruce spoke up, his voice certain. That was good, Clint thought. [Hawkeye, we're all going to have to go. But as soon as we defeat this thing...]

"Yeah, go. I'll be fine." Clint wondered if he really was going to be fine, but five avengers against the beast was going to be able to do the job faster than four. He tried to tell himself he hsd things to be thankful for. Like the fact that he wasn't getting smothered by smoke, for instance. Or the fact that he wasn't pyrophobic, which would have been a serious trouble in his current situation.

He impatiently wiped a roll of sweat away from his face, but when he tried to take a deep breath he found himself lacking air. He panicked and tried again, this time successfully. He gripped his bow in his hands. Calm down, Clint, he told himself. This building is huge. There's a lot of air. It didn't help that the rest of his team was yelling and roaring in battle in his ear.

As time passed, he found himself having less and less room as fire roared closer and closer, eating away and melting the metal skeleton of the building. He was utterly trapped. He gritted his teeth and shakily pulled out an explosive arrow. Aiming as far as he could, he bit his lip and let it fly. When it exploded, the entire floor crumbled underneath him and he gripped whatever he could going down so he wouldn't plunge down into a sea of fire without aiming his drop.

[Hawkeye!]

"I'm okay. I'm okay." Clint couldn't even progress who the voice belonged to. He swung on a thankfully dead wire, trying to gauge where the floor was the most stable.

Apparently the battle with whatever they were facing was straining, because whoever had asked didn't continue asking what had caused the explosion. He hoped he was making the right choice and landed as carefully as he could onto an island of no fire.

Thankfully, the floor didn't crumble at his feet. But now Clint was surrounded on all sides of burnjng rubble and intense heat. "Tony." He gasped weakly. "I don't know how much longer."

He was answered by a string of curses. Tony was yelling something at him but he could barely process it. He leaned himself onto the wall, uncaring that it was hot, buried his face in his hands, and tried to breathe as best as he could.

His breath was short, shallow and his lungs burned and ached for more air that he wasn't getting. He was out. Out of oxygen, out of time. "Tony." He rasped weakly. "I can't breathe." He raised his had and found black spots swimming in his vision. Tony's voice kept yelling at him, but even that was drowned by the sounds of rubble crumbling down, and Clint let the hold on consciousness go when the floor he was sitting on crumbled below him.

When he woke up, his entire body ached and his lungs were throbbing. And he was freezing, all except his left hand. Someone was holding his hand. He tried to sit up and say something, but his throat felt like sandpaper.

"Hey, hey. Relax. You're okay." His eyes turned to locate Bruce. "You're going to be fine. You scared us a little bit for the past five days, but you're going to be fine."

Five days. He'd been under for five days? He wanted to ask, but his throat refused to work. Thankfully Bruce seemed to understand. "You weren't completely out. You kept going back and forth between unconsciousness and an unreponsive consciousness, which really scared us. You had severe heatstroke which isn't surprising at all, but your fever spiked up to 110 at random times. You still have a really high fever, so we've been having Jarvis keep a watch on you. You fractured your right wrist and clavicle and dislocated the same shoulder, fractured your left hip and both ankles. You've got second degree burns all over the place, but everything is healing well. You're going to be okay." Bruce ruffled his hair, and Clint looked at the oxygen mask over his lips. "It's there to lessen the strain on your lungs. You can take it off in two days."

Clint managed to nod. Everything still throbbed, but Bruce wouldn't have lied to him if he wasn't healing. "To...ny." He managed to breathe.

A look crossed over Bruce's face. "Natasha snuck up on him last night with a sedative. He hasn't slept a wink since the day." He sighed and patted Clint's hair. It felt nice, like a reassuring hand his father would have when he wasn't dead drunk. "I don't really remember, but Thor says that as soon as you stopped responding over the comms, Tony flew back to the building. Thankfully I think we managed to kill the source monster before he tried to body slam the fire wall. He said you were buried under burning rubble on the second highest floor." Bruce paused. "Why didn't you two tell us you were dating? Wait, don't answer that, your throat."

Clint struggled to sit up. He could read the disappointment on the physicist's eyes. He reached for the doctor's hand and squeezed as best as he could. Bruce smiled back at him. "I know you have your reasons. Now go back to sleep and focus on healing."

The next time he woke up, his body throbbed considerably less and his throat felt like less coarse sandpaper. And a familiar face was sitting where Bruce had been last time, focused on doing something that Tony hadn't even realized Clint was awake. It took Clint another second to realize that Tony was applying some sort of cold salve onto his side. He seemed fine, save a discoloring around one eye. "Tony." He rasped.

Brown eyes snapped up to him immediately. "Oh, God, Clint." Tony closed his hands and took a deep breath. "Bruce told me you legitimately woke up while I was asleep and..." He took Clint's hand and kissed each knuckle. "I thought I lost you. You weren't breathing when I got to you."

Clint attempted his throat and found it working. "When my fever goes down, I want ice cream. A shit ton of it. And I want to live in the pool. With the AC blasting. A ton of it. Maybe take a vacation to Alaska or something."

Tony laughed and kissed his knuckles again. "Natasha tried to kill me when they figured out we were dating. She got me here." Tony pointed to his black eye and Clint couldn't help but laugh. "She threatened that if I hurt you in any way, she was going to kill me in my sleep."

"Sounds like Nat." Clint smiled tiredly. "How'd they find out?"

Tony had the decency to look sheepish. "Well, I wasn't exactly the most subtle when I thought you were dead." He looked defensive. "You can't expect me to have been calm when you're not breathing."

Clint coughed in response and Tony reached for the water. He slipped the oxygen mask lower for Clint to drink, but when the cool liquid hit Clint's lips and slid down his throat he tried to reach up and grip it so Tony couldn't pull away. His hands failed him, but Tony rubbed his thumb over Clint's shaking hands. "Drink all you want. Bruce said to keep you hydrated. And to be honest, I don't think I could refuse you anything right now. So are you serious about Alaska? Cause I could arrange that for us."

Clint laughed. "No. Maybe. Is Fury giving me time off?"

"Well I could convince him... I really don't think he'd be against the idea though. He feels bad. The thing is, R&D sort of remade your summer suit but he forgot to tell you, and if you were a few degrees cooler in the building, you may not have passed out. Should I book a hotel in Alaska?"

"No. Somewhere not too hot not too cold with a lot of ice cream and a nice big pool." He said, exhaust taking over him. "A lot of water. And a fluffy bed."

Tony chuckled softly and kissed his lips before he slid the oxygen mask back over. "Okay. Now you get sleep and heal up."

And that was how Clint found himself two weeks later on a private cruise ship sailing off the coast of Cancun, waking up in a large fluffy bed overlooking a shiny deck with a giant pool, his billionaire boyfriend sitting next to him with a bowl of chocolate ice cream and two spoons.

Today, Clint thought in a happy daze as Tony Stark kissed him good morning, was going to be a good day.

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It's wayyyy too hot in Manhattan right now, and since the Avengers Tower is in Manhattan, I figure the Avengers would be suffering from the heat and humidity, too. :3 Review?


End file.
